or as an expositor of the confession or articles of a given church-the very allegation exposes him to suspicion. In the Gospel there may be difficulties, embarrassing both to the wise and the unwise; but there are no secrets in the hands of a privileged class. Much of the sacred book remains to this hour a mystery; and, as if it were meant at the very outset of the volume to confound the wisdom of the wise, no satisfactory explanation has yet been given of the first ten verses of Genesis. What does the Church of Rome say to this? Has she sent a legate to our geological societies, in order to assist, in her difficulties, an infallible interpreter? On the contrary, Look at Galileo on his knees; see the commentators of Newton prefixing a declaration to his immortal Principia, in which, by a solemn falsehood, they avoid the fate of the unhappy Florentine astronomer. "Newton," say the great mathematicians Le Seur and Jacquier, "assumes, in his third book, the hypothesis of the earth's motion. The propositions of that author could not be explained except through the same hypothesis. We have, therefore, been forced to act a character not our own. But we declare our submission to the decrees of the Roman Pontiffs against the motion of the earth! *"? We smile again; and again feel the superiority of the Protestant mind. Emotions, however, of an opposite kind, will agitate the bosom of a believer in the sacred writings, when he contemplates the success of Antichrist in impeding their free course through our own country ; and on a principle not essentially different from the one which we have just confuted by bursts of derision. There are, indeed, at hand various maxims and aphorisms distingue tempora; festina lente; cavendo tutus-and many other antithetical mottoes, brought forward on all occasions, where men feel the power and dread the further advances of an opposing party. The best boon of Heaven to a lost world is yet to be bestowed-even among ourselves, in the asylum of truth and liberty!-with such wariness and caution, as might seem to indicate that the bread of life contained the elements of poison. But if the country is to be delivered from its difficulties- if we would avoid the terrible conflict which may, otherwise, take place between the despotism of a certain class among us and the insubordination of other classes, the * Blanco White's Evidence,' &c. Letter VI. This declaration was made so lately as 1742! numerical force of whom it is fearful to compare with their disposition to insolence and plunder; if we would unite the Christian soldiery of all arms, without insisting upon an uniformity of accoutrements and discipline, in defence of the faith of the Christian church; if we would make our countrymen happy for this world, and strive for their eternal security in the next-oh, let all our disputes about the diffusion of the Scriptures cease, and be for ever forgotten, in a desire to bless mankind with the salvation which, as instruments in the hands of God, they describe, proclaim, and offer to universal acceptance! As long as on this point we indulge in sectarian animosities, we convert our privileges into a curse; and aid the triple conspiracy, now gathering its strength under the banners of Atheism. CHAPTER XV. CHARACTER OF PERTINAX-ECCLESIASTICAL BIGOTRY-THE INFIDEL ANTICHRIST. but -He is left to collect his religion as he may; the study of Christianity has formed no part of his education, and his attachment to it (where any attachment to it exists at all) is, too often, not the preference of sober reason, merely the result of early prejudice and groundless prepossession. He was born in a Christian country, of course he is a Christian; his father was a member of the Church of England, so is he. When such is the hereditary religion, handed down from generation to generation, it cannot surprise us to observe young men of sense and spirit beginning to doubt altogether of the truth of the system in which they have been brought up, and ready to abandon a station which they are unable to defend. Let us beware before it be too late. No one can say into what discredit Christianity may hereby grow, at a time when the free and unrestrained intercourse, subsisting among the several ranks and classes of society, so much favours the general diffusion of the sentiments of the higher orders.—Wilberforce. SUCH was the portrait, and such the warning, given to his country by the great author of the Practical View' thirty years since. He yet survives, and has lived to see much of his apprehensions verified. An illustration of the infidelity diffused among us shall now be attempted, in the sketch of a character-is it a very uncommon one?-where a practical disbelief of Christianity is veiled under high pretensions of attachment to ecclesiastical usages. This is one of the most insidious forms of irreligion. It is an enemy who attacks the citadel, not by open hostility, but by forming a conspiracy in the garrison itself.—It ought to be premised, that although, in the present instance, the traitor is described as belonging to an established church, yet that the same plot may be carried on, except in circumstantials, in any division of the Christian world. Pertinax was the son of parents educated under the discipline of the Established Church. Externally they were consistent members of its communion; but, gliding through life at a period when the ecclesiastical world was generally quiescent, they took little interest in the controversies occasionally awakened; and at such times gazed at what was done by others, as incurious and idle spectators. Their son passively succeeded to their principles; as he did, in after years, to their mansion and estate. In his childhood, he was regularly taught the Catechism; and, at the usual time, passed on |